Research

Earlier studies have documented an “identifiable victim effect”: people donate more to help individual people than to groups. Evidence suggests that this is in part due to an emotional reaction to the identified recipients, who generate more sympathy. However, stereotype research has...Read More..

This letter explores whether the effects of a counterfactual reduction in the size of the 2100 population by 1 billion have important consequences for wellbeing because of effects on climate change?...Read More..

Ending open defecation in the developing world has gained significant policy attention recently, motivated by the idea that private demand for latrines lies below the social optimum. We investigate the mortality externalities of poor sanitation by exploiting differences in latrine...Read More..

Water, sanitation, and hygiene can have a profound effect on health and nutrition. A growing base of evidence on the link between sanitation, child height, and well-being has come at an opportune time, when the issue of sanitation and nutrition...Read More..

Abstract: Despite being wealthier, Indian children are significantly shorter and smaller than African children. These differences begin very early in life, suggesting that they may in part re- flect differences in maternal health. By applying reweighting estimation strategies to the Demographic...Read More..

A method of measuring corruption in MGNREGS is to compare the aggregate levels of employment reported in official data (MPR or MIS) with independent measures based on household surveys (Bhalla 2011, Himanshu 2010, Imbert and Papp 2011). We follow this method here...Read More..

This course is intended to introduce students to the main types of demographic data, and prepare them to successfully collect their own data. There is a focus on collecting data in developing countries. We will look at surveys and other instruments that...Read More..

We estimate the effect of a large workfare program in India on private employment and wages by comparing trends in districts that received the program earlier relative to that received it later. Our results suggest that public sector hiring crowds...Read More..

Height is a marker for health, cognitive ability and economic productivity. Recent research on the determinants of height suggests that postneonatal mortality predicts height because it is a measure of the early life disease environment to which a cohort is...Read More..

Despite high rates of internal migration, India is urbanizing relatively slowly. This paper uses new data from rural, northwest India to study short-term migration to urban areas and its role in rural livelihoods. First, we demonstrate the importance of data...Read More..

Early-life health shapes cognitive skills and human capital. In India, widespread open defecation without using a toilet is an important source of childhood disease. We study the effects on childhood cognitive achievement of early-life exposure to India’s Total Sanitation Campaign...Read More..

We study the effect of a large rural public works program on short-term migration from rural to urban areas in India. Using cross-state variation in public employment provision for identification, we find that participation to the program significantly reduces short-term...Read More..

Using data from the National Crime Records Bureau and the National Family Health Surveys, this article estimates, conservatively, the under-reporting of violence against women in India. I calculate under-reporting of sexual and physical violence, both for violence committed by “men...Read More..

Despite economic growth, government latrine construction, and increasing recognition among policy-makers that it constitutes a health and human capital crisis, open defecation remains stubbornly widespread in rural India. Indeed, 67% of rural Indian households in the 2011 census reported defecating...Read More..

Despite economic growth, government latrine construction, and increasing recognition among policy-makers that it constitutes a health and human capital crisis, open defecation remains stubbornly widespread in rural India. Indeed, 67% of rural Indian households in the 2011 census reported defecating...Read More..

The Janani Suraksha Yojana, India’s “safe motherhood program,” is a conditional cash transfer to encourage women to give birth in health facilities. Despite the program’s apparent success increasing facility-based births, quantitative evaluations have not found corresponding improvements in health outcomes....Read More..